Bystanders are kids and teens who witness bullying and cyberbullying in action; who stand by and
watch, who videotape it and make it viral… and who do and say nothing!
Very often these kids and teens don’t know what to do. They are afraid of retaliation or fear that their own group will exclude them for helping an outsider.
When you are a bystander, it is important to know that by doing nothing you are sending a message to the bully that their behavior is acceptable, when in fact this is not the case. This is not the kind of message that you want to send, nor is it a message that you would want someone else to send if you were the victim.
It is always scary to directly confront a bully and sometimes it can mean taking a big risk. But, it is important to stand up and not allow bullying to happen in the first place. It takes courage to be an upstander. Upstanders are kids who do something to try to prevent bullying from happening, or comes to the aid of another child who is being bullied by showing them kindness. Moving from being a bystander to becoming an upstander may not happen overnight. However, it starts with becoming more aware of the bullying behavior and how it is affecting the lives of the victims.
Whether you know the victim or not, there are things that you can do as a bystander to safely support the victim:
There is strength in numbers. Every community and every school has more caring kids than bullies. If we are not part of the solution, we become part of the problem. When you see someone being bullied and/or cyberbullied and you help them…you stop being a bystander and become an upstander!
It’s totally up to us…we can change anything we want- why not stand up and change the way bullies treat their target.
“In the end we will not remember the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends.” — Martin Luther King Jr.
